Thursday, January 31, 2013

Things are
looking up. Not only am I now caught up on both Girls and the Bachelor (yeah, I’m a sophisticated lawyer who watches the
Bachelor, what of it?) is Congress making moves toward immigration reform
and gun control, but check this out: the smart, witty, feminist ladies over at A Practical Wedding/Reclaiming Wife (because “reclaiming marriage” just
sounds homophobic), have kindly posted one of my sassy musings ramblings
on trying to conceive.

And, notwithstanding
the morbidity
of my last posts
(really, I’m okay guys, no need to remove the sharp objects), I’m ready for
another go at all of this. I still need the green light from the reproductive
endocrinologist next week, but here’s hoping that lucky-number-round-three of
Clomid is right around the corner. Honestly, I have never been so physically
and emotionally ready for hot flashes and, you know, being kind of abitch(nostalgia is, apparently, a very distorting force).

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Welp. I’m getting less pregnant by the day. As ever-more insightful people have said before me, it turns out that you can, in fact, be a little bit pregnant. And I am. Just the tiniest little bit. In fact, in a cruel twist of waning pregnancy symptoms, my boobs and lower back are prepared to deliver twins. But the rest of me is quickly losing interest. From a not-so-high-high of 69 point something on Friday, my HCG levels have dropped to a respectably-less-pregnant 22.

In some ways, it creates an oddly liberating sense of relief – it means this particular cycle of hell is almost over. And it also (probably) means I don’t have a dangerous ectopic pregnancy moments away from rupturing, landing me in the intensive care unit in need of an emergency blood transfusion[1]. Not that I spent the entire weekend transfixed by bulletin board trolls and web “doctors” who suggested my death by ectopic was imminent. Because umm, I was plastered to the couch, paralyzed by panic I didn’t?[2]

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Let’s just cut
to the chase: it’s over[1].
I played with fire and I got burned. On Friday I went in for my second blood
draw, to see whether the pregnancy was progressing normally. The hope was that
my HCG level would have doubled (or, because I’m an overachiever, tripled),
signifying that it was viable (at least for now).

On Wednesday, my
number was a moderate, but perfectly respectable, 65.8. By Friday? 69. To say
it wasn’t living up to it’s potential would be one way of interpreting things.

The nurse broke
the news kindly: I’m sorry. This is what we call a biochemical pregnancy. An
early loss. A miscarriage.[2]

Then Icried through my mouthsaid some things amidst the tears – which must have been nonsense because she
offered to call me back after I took a minute to, ahem, get my act together.
But, bless her heart, I made her suffer, asking, essentially, the same question
in eleventy bazillion different ways: isn’t
there any way this could be a viable pregnancy?

‘Fraid not. But
she did have one exciting alternative: I could
have an ectopic pregnancy. Because I’m a sadist they need to make sure
I don’t, I get to return on Monday for another blood draw (my veins, and
patience, are wearing thin).

I wrote this on Friday morning. I didn’t
post because terror, JINX, etc. But now, here you are.

For those
playing along at home, you may be wondering whether I had any symptoms that
would foretell this dramatic turn of events (I’m just guessing, seeing as I
google “symptoms of pregnancy” about 30 times a day).

The answer is
yes – but I didn’t know it. As exquisitely described in this hilarious post,
the net effect of infertility is that you lose all trust in your own body. Your
body is a deceitful bastard, sending up phantom pregnancy symptoms on the
regular. A subtle twinge anywhere near your pelvis/abdomen/ovaries/breasts/eyeballs
– start painting the nursery!

Putting aside
the most striking of symptoms – i’m. not. menstruating. – I actually did have
other signs. While the hot flashes were probably just the Clomid talking (REMEMBER ME, said the Clomid), I was
also suffering from excruciating gas pains. Yes strangers and friends, I was,
in a word, gassy. But it did not
occur to me that this could be explained by anything other than totally
plausible non-pregnancy reasons – my period was about to arrive, I have a diagnosed
gastrointestinal auto-immune disorder, I just ate a bunch of red onions, etc.

Thankfully, I
had asked a good friend (and veteran pregnant lady) what her earliest symptoms
were. Her only answer? Gassy. Well, well, well. False sense of confidence in
tow, I started noticing other (kind of real, but probably just psychosomatic)
signs – I was really tired, I was craving citrus, I felt a kick!

For a second,
for just a very quick, blink and you’ll miss it, second, I allowed myself to
believe that I might in fact be carrying a ball of
fingers[1]smaller-than-one-millimeter gaggle of cells[2]
that could one day turn into a living, breathing, baby who grows up to spend
her teenage years resenting me. But anyway, because I was still living in utter terror, I let that moment pass.

And today? Well.
Gas pain. I think. Or something else. That’s the problem; I still don’t trust
anything my body does. While my pelvis is calculating the due date and picking
out cribs, my mind is spinning with doubt. Any pain in any place between my
neck and my ankles feels certain to portend some horrible fate previously unknown –
Ectopic pregnancy? Early miscarriage? Appendicitis? IMMINENT DEATH. You
know, reasonable things.

Is Xanax
compatible with pregnancy?

[1]You will
pay TheNew Yorker to break through this pay wall. Because Tina, Jeff,
Alice and ball of fingers are WORTH IT, goddamit. (Or you will coerce your
richer, more sophisticated friend into giving you her New Yorker password.
Either way, really.)

[2]Murder of cells? Flock of cells? Quiver,
pack, school, herd? Really, I have no idea.

Friday, January 25, 2013

I wrote this on Wednesday evening. I was living in a state of euphoria tempered by utter terror. Because of the overwhelming feeling that was the latter, I couldn’t post in real time. But, after the fact, when things are different, here you are. I wrote something this morning, too. That’s up next. Then we’ll be back to real time.

Well hello big, bad interwebs. There’s something I’ve been keeping from you. The last week has been, in a word: surreal.

On Friday evening, anxious and being the reckless dolt that I am poorly attuned to timing and, um, math, I took a pregnancy test. It came back negative. C and I went out for sushi and frozen yogurt to commiserate.

I promised myself that I would wait until my blood test on Wednesday and not act rashly – that I would not go out to the store and buy another three pack of pregnancy tests so that I could take one each and every day until then. Of course, this being reality, I could not keep such promises. After all, I already had one extra pregnancy test stashed in a bathroom cabinet and I began deviously plotting when I would take it – secretly, under cover of night, etc.

As it turns out… at (approximately) 4:22 am on Tuesday morning, I awoke with a start. (I didn’t tell the doctor this next part because it makes me sound unhinged sounds made up. But since the interweb audience is primed for my candor…) Where was I. I awoke with a start and sprang from the bedto see what was the matter. I had just had the most vivid pregnancy dream. In the dream, I took a pregnancy test and it came back positive (forget the part where I was 19 and living at my parents’ house – that’s obviously irrelevant). I stayed in bed until 4:35 when I decided I just had to do it already. Calmly and quietly, I got out of bed and I peed on that stick. <Anticipation builds to a virtual crescendo. >

You guys: I got a faint positive. A positive so faint I googled so many iterations of “faint positive and clear blue pregnancy test” that by the end, I was sure I was giving birth to twin leopards, breech (thanks Yahoo Answers!). Oh, also – of course I woke up C. I had to. Only his (incredibly sleepy, bewildered and confused) doctor eyes could confirm whether this was, in fact, a faint positive or merely a middle of the night, dream induced aberration of my pregnancy-hungry eyes. He confirmed the former, though not without pausing meaningfully to consider the latter. Even the dog came to take a look – at which point C patted the dog on the head and said dreamily, and I quote “Oh Luna, you’re gonna be a papa.” (Luna is a girl dog and we’re pretty sure C is the father. It was early.).

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Before we begin, let’s get a few things
straight: We <motions to the vast, illusive blog-o-sphere> are strong,
intelligent, educated women. We are not merely emotional beings whose
undulating moods are predetermined by the waning and waxing of the moon; we are
rational, clear thinking, logical women not easily swayed by myth and
superstition. Got it? Got it!

And yet. And
yet! When it comes to our fertility, we are completely, utterly, all-consumingly paralyzed by the power
of elementary school reasoning – we are paralyzed by the power of jinx[1].

Jinx is why you
don’t tell your family that you’re “trying.” Jinx is the reason you don’t tell
your friends you’re pregnant until after your 12 week check up despite the fact
that you are green in the face with nausea and have cancelled “going out for a
drink” for three weeks running. Jinx is why you didn’t tell your husband your
period was late even if you were certain you were pregnant because you
were terrified of jinxing what, by that point, was already a medical reality.

Since deciding
to write a blog about my own <I kind of want to say fertility journey, but it just sounds like a booth at the Lilith Fair> I have
often been confronted with this phenomenon – don’t I worry that my reckless
candor will forever ruin my chances of actually accomplishing the thing I have
set out to do? That even if I do (somehow, some way) get pregnant, that by
announcing it to all you kind strangers on the internet, plus my momthe world, I’m essentially asking for
miscarriage and mayhem (in that order)?

Sunday, January 20, 2013

I should have seen it coming. I should have known. I should
have emotionally prepared myself for *gulp* the baby shower. Dun, Dun, Dun!

I mean it when I say I’m totally thrilled for this
soon-to-be-mama – I loved picking out baby books for her new arrival and
celebrating with oh-dear-god-why-do-i-insist-on-being-sober-I’m-so-not-pregnant (virgin) bellinis. What
I didn’t expect is that, duh, baby showers tend to also be full of the-already-born-variety of baby.

There. Were. Babies. Everywhere. A 17 month old dancing in
circles like a drunken sailor, chanting “car, car, CARRRR!”; a two and a half
year old covered in cupcake frosting; a three week old so tiny it did not
appear to be able to open it’s eyes. And those were just the ones I saw. (In
addition to the one who permanently attached herself to me and gnawed on my
fingers for about two hours, every minute of which was kind oflikeheaven.)

To say I was green with envy isn’t entirely accurate – I
don’t begrudge them their adorable snotty babbling babes or resent their
fertility (because, um, that would be clinically insane and it’s also entirely possible that I was in the midst of
babies-conceived-with-Clomid, a reality far more prevalent than I ever knew.).
It’s more that I just, like, want one. Like, yesterday <naturally talk of
babies lapses into, like, talking like a valley girl. That’s a thing, right? >.

We’ve always known we wanted kids – secret shame: C and I had
a baby girl’s name picked out by our junior year in college – but I never
really knew quite how much. There’s
something totally intangible about this feeling – and lest you think I’m going
down some ultra-weird-maternal-biological-impulse road, C has it too. We both
get emotional thinking about how bad we want this – how bad I too want to
suffer through nine months of unceasing nausea, how bad C wants to suffer
through nine months of I’m-too-nauseous
to look at you let alone have sex with you treatment. We’re just dying to sleep
three hours a night, in 8-minute increments, and find that all of our clothes
are covered in spit-up, snot or both (that’s basically parenthood in a
nutshell, right?).

Anyway. One emotional rollercoaster of a baby shower later and
here I am, at home. Mindlessly perusing pictures of baby rooms on Apartment Therapy ("Emerson's Vintage Nursery"; "Juniper's Whimsical Abode" - seriously, I could not make this stuff up) because, err, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Okay fine, so I probably need better distractions – this, this and rigorous house cleaning
(why yes, I will vacuum the
baseboards!) should suffice, for now. Only *cough* 72 hours until we find out
whether this cycle worked…

Thursday, January 17, 2013

For the
mathematically inclined at home, yes, I know, I’m only 10 days post ovulation.
So, technically, my period’s not missed,
just missing. Last cycle, gifted and
talented ovulator that I am, my period arrived basically 30 minutes after I ovulated. (If you’re wondering - those 29 minutes of I-could-totally-be-pregnant were, in a
word, bliss).

Anyway. I’m ten
days post ovulation (10dpo if you will – and you will not, because we do not use jargon here) and nothing. Nothing with a big, fat, YET attached to it.

What I think
this means: ohmygod I’m
pregnant.

What this
actually means: Well. Actually.
According to numerous reputable online sources – which I had to check because,
duh, I still have basically no idea how my body works – Aunt Flo usually
doesn’t arrive until 14-16 days post ovulation which means I am… so not
pregnant. On a related note, I’m also sick of carrying tampons in every bag and
pocket I own. *dramatic sigh.*

(2) Premature menopause hot
flashes

As in, several
times a day. In particular, when I’m oh, I don’t know, breathing. Or breathing
in the close vicinity of another human being. Or possibly walking. Or possibly
sitting at my desk trying not to
breathe and holding my limbs as still as possible. ProTip: when planning to
sweat through your fancy work clothes, best to wear dark colors.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Of twins, each time we baby dance <cringe>.With Clomid, extra hormones flow,To help the eggs mature and grow.With more than one egg released at ovulation,So does grow the expectation,That both will fertilize and then, oh my!We’ll have two, but it’s not enough, C cries.His ears perk up, an increased risk of twins?He's now intrigued, eyes a-spin,A challenge afoot, this more than one.Why only two? Why only double the fun?Alas, he declares, “If we just had twins, we’d be quitters!”He won’t be happy until we have, in his words, “a litter.”[1]

[1]This is totally a joke. A terrible, only-funny-to-the-trying-to-conceive-set joke. It's also an astute reminder of C’s primary role in our
relationship: unrestrained proposer of harebrained hijinks. We’re not from the land of the medically-reckless, greedy-baby-freakshoping for anything more than one healthy, gender-non-specific, set of
lungs and a diaper. In truth, the thought of multiples paralyzes me with fear. Fear and months of bed-rest.

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Another cycle,
another “two week wait.” Another 14 (or so) days during which time I am
carefree, relaxed and happily enjoying other pursuits that don’t involve
scheduled sex wondering if every last twinge, itch, and strange dream is surely the earliest sign of pregnancy.

Helpful as
always, C has already taken to teasing me about my upcoming role as insufferable-patient-with-pseudocyesis[1].
Truthfully, it will be a dazzling role reprisal as my one loyal reader (hi
mom!) may remember my previous forays into I’m-so-tired-with-shades-of-nausea-that-i-must-be-pregnant-even-though-i-haven’t-ovulated-in-six-months
bat-shit crazy reasoning. What can I say – I’m a lawyer, I think logically.

Anyway, I’m
trying my best to maintain some semblance of sanity. It certainly helps that my
bitchiness has all but disappeared – shock: it was totally correlated to
Clomid-taking! – and the crippling ovary pain (it arrived!) has since faded.

If you’re
keeping score at home, here’s the low down on the next steps: In the next two
weeks, I’ll meet with the reproductive endocrinologist and put a plan[2]
in place should my subsequent pregnancy test reveal that I’m not of the
knocked-up variety. Then, a few days later, faint-festa blood draw confirms whether or not I won the golden ticket. Until then,
I’ll probably have to be physically restrained from taking seventy-bajillion
home pregnancy tests whose inscrutable test-reading-windows leave me certain that
I’m the rare pregnant lady for whom a home pregnancy test always provides a false negative.

Forthcoming: the
second installment of the ever-popular recipe-post, things-I-cooked-while-trying. This time with slightly less chocolate <jumps back on treadmill>.

[1] What, you
don’t… live with a doctor yet obtain all of your substantive medical advice from webmd?

[2] Which will
go something like… take more birth control, then take more Clomid, maybe a round of OVIDREL as an aperitif. For full
effect, this plan will be implemented without even the slightest hint of irony.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Reprising
his role as doctor-husband, and in most un-sexy fashion, C grabs hold of
Sarah's belly fat[1]. (There is
really no delicate way to say that.)

6:46 am,
Monday morning:

Without even
so much as a warning, C jams a giant syringe full of Chinese hamster ovary right into it[2].
Sarah, determined to cry dramatically and on cue (so that C will walk the
dog take pity on her), realizes it doesn't actually hurt that much and
can't quite muster the focus necessary for such theatrics.

Monday, January 7, 2013

Another day, another early morning in stirrups while wearing half of a business suit. It’s a precarious existence I inhabit.

In any case. There I was. In half a lawyer-suit on top and birthday suit on bottom with a new nurse wanding me. This nurse has a lot of personality. A lot of distinctly Massachusetts South Shore personality. She is candid. And feisty. And apparently, full of compliments for me and my hardworking ovaries.

“Oh yeah! Super (pronounced soo-puh), look at this one <excitedly turns screen in my direction so I can see what look like pulsing amoebas bouncing around inside my pelvis>”

“Yeah, you did a wicked good job, right here (pronounced heee-uh), look at this!”

I may have blushed. I may have been secretly flattered by her unceasing praise. I may have been so negative going in to this morning’s wanding that I had psychologically prepared myself for no follicles and a failed cycle. After all, absent the crippling ovary pain I experienced in my first cycle, I had (completely rationally) convinced myself that this cycle was unsuccessful.

Saturday, January 5, 2013

It’s possible that I was a little bit of a bitch[1]
this week. There. I said it. And I’m just going to own it blame it all
on the hormones coursing through my body. I was basically just a bitch sort
of snappy when I could have been patient; a bit judgmental when I should have
been loving. I saw it and yet, I was completely powerless to stop it. It’s an eerie out of body experience – especially given that I am
usually such a bright, cheery, kind and generous person.[2]

If I were being thoughtful about this, if I wasn’t using
such foul language[3], I think I
would say that it’s more of a “second-cycle-funk” (that’s a thing, right?).

It’s not that I feel angry or resentful at not being with child. As much as I adore that
phrase, and as much as I planned to relentlessly denyembrace those feelings, they’re just not
here. I’m still decidedly not at the point where the fertility clinic waiting
room sign – The presence of children may
make other patients uncomfortable. Please make arrangements for them before
coming.[4]
– applies to me (and dear-omnipotent-presence-if-you-do-exist-in-whatever-form,
let me never get to that place and in the meantime, let me be kind to those who
have). In fact – shock of the interwebs – I’m still genuinely happy to receive
baby announcements. It’s just that I don’t know what the future holds[5]
and this leaves me feeling astonishingly, breathtakingly, staggeringly ANXIOUS. Which, in turn, leads me to express my apprehension
in negative ways be a bitch.

So, I’m working on it. I think it’s
in check now – much more so when I feed it cookies and let it watch Portlandia.
In the meantime, I’m embracing my hormonal instability. Because, you guys: bitches get stuff done.

[1]<Insert
post-modern feminist argument about the social harms of the word “bitch”, then
something about “reclaiming” the word bitch and probably something else about
heteronormativity and hegemony. > Or else, probably just what Murray said in Clueless.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

This is what I need to be doing to cover the ballooning cost of
not being able to ovulate on my own[1].
Yes, I know what you’re thinking – I’m not even in IVF-proper land. Heck, I’m
still in the junior-miss department of infertility. I’m still on clomid. Just clomid. It’s like romper room over
here. Just wait, you’re thinking, just wait until you make it into the major
leagues – IVF and all the other acronyms. Then
you’ll know what’s what.

Point taken <briefly daydreaming about what I have to look forward to, it’s just like this, right?> But where
was I. Yes. Even in the dilettante-department-of-just-Clomid-taking, infertility ain’t free. The total cost of my
treatment thus far, excluding co-pays ($25 for each office visit) has been a
cool $4,957[2].Thankfully, insurance has paid for
the majority of this. I have had to write several checks (the most recent for $183.38)
for expenses that our insurance didn’t cover but I am FULLY aware that I am
exceedingly lucky in this regard – that most spend far more; that one measly
cycle of IVF can cost double this. But guys, I've barely been at this two months.

I’m a lawyer, (I know, it comes as a shock to me, too), but
I make less than an ice-cream store manager; less than a (unionized) tollbooth
collector (a career I am now actively exploring). C is a medical resident, a
title only bestowed after accumulating approximately
100,000 dollars of student loan debt. I’m clearly complaining not complaining; we are very
fortunate to have the chance to try and we’re doing okay (so far). But what if
this thing drags on past, oh, I don’t know, tomorrow?